NASA Unveils The Next Gen Suits For Future Mars Missions

NASA is working on advanced space suit technologies that will help the astronauts to do deep exploration in the future mars missions. In the month of October, this space agency disclosed the details of these two new space suits via a post on their official website. Both the latest suits will have ‘regenerable carbon dioxide removal systems’ and ‘water evaporation systems’ which will equip the astronauts with the improved basic necessities in space including breathing and regulating temperature.

The two latest suits are Z-2 and PXS, and at present the agency is working on advanced prototypes. Z-2 suit will be suitable for doing various extravehicular activities on planetary surface. This high-durable, light-weight suit has been designed for long duration missions in harsh conditions which is pretty common in Mars. In other words, this suit has been specifically designed for Mars mission.

On the other hand, PXS (Prototype Exploration Suit) has been designed for improving spacewalks in low-earth orbit or outer space and suit fitting. The main purpose for designing this suit is to reduce the amount of additional equipments that are required for long-duration missions. Also, this suit will have sizing features that can be 3D printed even when in transit, on-orbit, and while on Mars to customise the fit.

The engineers working on these two suits have declared earlier on a Reddit post that these suits will be ready for testing in 2020.